How to Overcome Stress (Matt. 6:25-34)

Mental Health: How to Deal with Stress
Matthew 6:25-34

INTRODUCTION:
I want to begin with a few cartoons… The first is a drawing of a zebra whose stripes are falling off and he thinks it is caused by stress. The next is a B. C. comic strip in which the snake is wanting to stop the dinosaur from jumping off the cliff and helps him see his strength. The third is a Peanuts comic strip when Snoopy says the way to minimize stress is to reduce your worries to a minimum.

What is the most frequently violated commandment by Christians? I suggest a possibility is found in Matthew 6:25-34 – worry.

There is a Mother Goose rhyme: For every ailment under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none; If there be one, try to find it; if there be none, never mind it. My mom use to tell me - oh how many times she told me! - “Son, you won’t remember this 100 years from now!” That has a way of putting things into perspective.

Reinhold Neibuhr wrote the “Serenity Prayer” and there is a lot of truth in that prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

Research has shown that 40% of the things we worry about never happen; 30% have already happened; 22% are petty and needless. That leaves 8% of our worries are legitimate. Now, among those 8% of legitimate worries are things you and I can control? How many of those worries have to simply be left in the hands of God?

One thing we need to stress about is sin. In Psalm 38:18, the psalmist says, “For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin.” What that argues is that we need to make sure we are right with God and there is no reason, absolutely no reason why we can’t be in a right relationship with God and if that is true, then all the other stresses in life are significantly less important.

But we don't need to be weighed down by stress. In the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things” (Luke 10:41). In Luke 21:34, Jesus warns His disciples, “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap.” You see, we can be so consumed with stress in this life, with stress about things we cannot control, that it saps our spiritual energy and makes us unprepared for judgment.

WHAT DO WE STRESS ABOUT?
World affairs
A new government
Health
Financial matters – In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” If we do as Snoopy has pointed out and minimize the things that we even need to be stressed about, we will boil things down, practically, to our relationship with Jesus Christ. In Psalm 37:25, the psalmist says, “I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread.” Do you believe that? Do you believe the words coming out of the mouth of God? Are you walking by faith rather than by sight? (2 Cor. 5:7)

WHAT ARE THE DAMAGING RESULTS OF STRESS?
We can be motivated to deal properly with stress when we recognize what it does for us. It certainly can affect:
Health (stress) – Let’s read Philippians 4:6-7 (1 Peter 5:7 - “casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” Obviously, that’s why the sermon this morning was so important - the power of prayer. Psalm 55:22 - “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” Jeremiah 17:7, 8 - ““Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.”
Increases stress by borrowing trouble from tomorrow. How many of you heard this statement from your mom or dad: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”? That is also an extremely important mentality to have: Matthew 6:34 - “do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Remember, 40% of things we stress over never happen! Prov. 27:1 - “Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.” Hebrew 13:5-6: “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,” so that we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” In the context of loving money, the Hebrew writer quotes Deut 31:6, 8 to remind us that God is always with us. He will provide.
Stress weakens our faith – “Worry is an old man; with bended head; carrying a load of feathers, which he thinks are lead.” Matthew 6:30 - “if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!” Every blade of grass should remind us that God loves us more than He loves the grass! Mark 11:22, Jesus says very simply, “Have faith in God.”

THE REMEDY FOR STRESS IS TRUST:
Look at Romans 4:17-25, especially 19-21. The key to the nature of faith is trust in the promises of God. Notice in verse 17 (with Abraham) and 24 (with us) that the heart of trust is knowledge that God raises the dead. In other words, if God can do that, He can take care of your and my worries.

An analysis of faith shows that it involves the intellect, the emotions, and the will. It encompasses the assent (submission) of the intellect, the trust of the emotions, and the obedience of the will. The essential element is the middle term: the trust of the emotions; but trust presupposes the acceptance of something as true and results in acting upon it.

Trust requires surrender and commitment. Trust means confidence, taking someone at his/her word. Trust is the act in which one may rely on the faithfulness, the trustworthiness of another; that his promises hold and what he asks, he asks of necessity.

Trust rests on the trustworthiness of God. He is faithful. Look back at Rom. 3:3-4. God is always trustworthy. He will always do the right thing. He will always do the right thing for His children. Do you trust Him?

Trust is where biblical faith goes beyond mental consent. It is being fully convinced, laying hold of something. There follows an emotional security and persuasion from this commitment to what God gives.

We have knowledge, upon which is built faith, from which flows trust.

Isaiah 57:11-13 (see 2 Kings 1:3, when King Jehoram sent messengers to inquire of Baal if the king would recover from his illness, Elijah asked him this question: “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?”). Family, let me gently ask you this question: “Is it because there inso God in heaven that you are stressing over things you cannot control?”

Paul is another example: Acts 20:22-24, a passage that has always given me courage in the face of Satan’s attacks: “And now, behold, bound by the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.”

In another passage, in Acts 23:11, before Paul appeared before the Sanhedrin, Jesus appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.”
Finally, in Acts 27:21-26, we have Paul on the ship going to Italy which is going to shipwreck but in the middle of that storm, listen to Paul’s words of trust: “When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, “Men, you ought to have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss. “Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. “For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you all those who are sailing with you.’ “Therefore, keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told. “But we must run aground on a certain island.”

Why Worry?

Worry goes to any length
To dull your faith and sap your strength.
It robs you of your rest and sleep,
And dwells on wounds that may run deep.
It never calms a troubled life
Amid its tangled web of strife.
It never lifts heavy load
Along its lone and weary road.
It never sets a captive free,
But adds to all its misery.
Its faith is weak, its doubts are strong
It frets and fumes, with ne'er a song.
It fails to see God's loving care
And views life's bumps as quite unfair.

Come, rid your mind of worries great,
Lest they rule and seal your fate.
Let faith replace those worries now;
The Word of God will teach you how.

Family, when you feel stress, trust God. I don’t want to re-preach my sermon from this morning, but when you feel stress, pray. Talk to God about it. Let God do what He does best and you take care of what you can handle. Fulton J. Sheen said, “All worry is atheism, because it is a want of trust in God.”

DO WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Now let me offer some suggestions in dealing with stress when we’re talking about things you actually might be able to handle, to change. First, analyze what is causing the stress and make a plan. If the stress is health-related, make a plan to improve your health. If it is financial-related, make a plan to increase your income or decrease your expenses. So far as I know, that’s the only two ways to get rid of debt which causes stress.
2. Put your plan into action. It is one thing to stress over problems; it’s another thing to make a plan. But then you have to act.
3. Accept your own limitations and facts in life. We tend to make things more important than they are and then we worry about them, which robs us of peace, self-esteem, and happiness. One reason why I don’t “preach on politics,” is because it blows way out of proportion the importance of what happens in Washington, D. C. Christians who get caught up in politics tend to worry and fret and forget that God is in control. We often make ourselves unhappy because we fret over things we cannot control or change.
4. Serve. I heard of a woman who was an active and enthusiastic volunteer at a local hospital But after her husband died, she quit. She got stuck in a rut of mourning. She withdrew into herself and thought far too much about how unfair it was for God to take her husband from her. When she finally forced herself to go back to her hospital work, she began to grow through her grief and get back to more normal feelings. She was not the same as she was before; she had adjusted. When we do good to others, it comes back to us.
5. Set appropriate priorities. Personal Bible study time and prayer are an absolute must. And you can’t get stuck just on those handful of verses that people put on Facebook all the time. Bible study and knowledge of God are far more broad and deep than “sound-bites” of Scripture. Prepare for Bible class. If you know Cody is teaching from Hebrews 6 or 7 on Sunday, read those chapters as a part of your personal study. If you have questions, bring them to class. Do family activities. Call those who aren’t coming to worship. Read. Exercise. The endorphins that are released from exercising have a way of stimulating your mind and putting your spirit at ease. Enjoy some leisure time; this is especially important for people who are workaholics, which can cause stress. Do yard work. We must keep our sanity in a world that is going mad by prioritizing just what is important to us. Everything is not of equal importance.
6. Take one day at a time.
7. “Cognitive restructuring” is a principle in psychology which understands that our thinking affects our feelings and our actions. When we change the way we think, we change our feelings. We need to argue with ourselves and remind ourselves of what we do that is good, what we do that is helpful; we need to remind ourselves of God’s love, trust, hope, and faith.
8. We need to learn to relax. We need leisure time. We can’t be busy doing, doing, doing all the time if we’re not giving our brain, our body, and our spirit time to relax. “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, But a good word makes it glad” (Prov. 12:25). Subscribe to gocomics.com. I get daily comics which help me keep life in perspective. Finally, Habakkuk 3:17-18 reads: “Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” It doesn’t matter what happens in life if I have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

A Christian woman was on her deathbed and told her daughter-in-law that she had learned something in life she wanted to leave with them. “I have learned,” she said, “not to climb mountains until I get to them.”

Take home message: Through God’s grace, Christ’s love, and the power of His word, we can overcome stress in our hearts.

Sources Used:
Conchin, Willard. Some Lessons from the Sermon on the Mount
Jackson, Wayne. The Bible and Mental Health.
Ferguson, Everett. The Church of Christ: An Ecclesiology for Today